ABSTRACT
The forces on atoms and molecules can be described in terms of two tendencies called energy and entropy. Molecules react, change conformations, bind, and undergo other chemical or physical changes in ways that cause a quantity called the energy to reach its minimum possible value and a quantity called the entropy to reach its maximum possible value. We can predict the tendencies of matter by computing the minima or maxima of certain mathematical functions. These are called extremum (or variational) principles.
